Autumnal breezes, ripped this beautiful dahlia from its stem. I rescued it and watched it, as with lots of water and paint, I created an image which will last…I want to say forever. As sunshine warmed us all, tiny golden sparkles glowed on its shiny petals. I love dahlias.

Yesterday was a great Art for the soul day, painting almost non stop for 3 hours in a lovely Studio gallery location in the buzzing Hertfordshire market town of Hitchin. I have never painted in Oils before and found them quite a challenge but I will get mine out at home now because they are such a tactile, vibrant medium. I love them. I hope you enjoy my painting. I tried to capture the light and different colours in a photo of the ‘black tulip.

This wonderful structured plant, Cynara, like a giant artichoke has electric blue petals, however morning light and exposure has made them purple!

After a long period of very hot weather for the UK, the garden has welcomed rain and a cooler period, as I have deadheaded and weeded I have noticed bees and butterflies more often. My lawn is the colour of straw and probably won’t recover this summer.

I hope you are having a god day. Apologies for my go slow blogging at the moment due to disruption in routine as the builders have been at home. The resulting conservatory needs decorating and furnishing but has brought so much light inside the cottage, and I can enjoy changing weather, sunrises and sunsets as well as starry nights from inside!

The garden is surprising me every day with new blooms. Time for recording their wonderful shapes and colours. Here are a couple of Watercolour sketches I did yesterday and today. The experience was very relaxing and my paint dried very quickly in the heat!

Both unfinished but hopefully capturing the essence of our colourful garden!

We’ve been having building work done at home which although exciting , I find it turns my usually fairly calm life into chaos.

So, as I haven’t been able to hide away creating in my Studio for a while, yesterday I went to another Artist’s Studio which was a beautiful tranquil space to learn about Glass fused designs.

At first I felt scared even cutting glass let alone grinding glass into shapes, however, after a while I found I really enjoyed creating my flower, dahlia design out of coloured glass offcuts. My flower will be fused in the kiln and next week I’ll pick it up. I Can’t wait to see the result! It was lovely to be creative without too many distractions.